


And You Gotta Deal

by PitbullMabari



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, F/F, F/M, Korrasami - Freeform, Teen Pregnancy, endgame - korrasami, main relationship - korra/asami, main relationship - korrasami, side relationship - mako/korra, side relationship - zuko/katara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:31:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PitbullMabari/pseuds/PitbullMabari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Katara sleeps with Jet, she thinks at first that she's made a huge mistake and horrible decisions. But when Aang dies in the Agni Kai and she gives birth to the next avatar, it turns out be a blessing in disguise. Four years later, the Fire Nation decides to raise the waterbender as their own and Katara returns as her daughter's teacher. Zutara, Korrasami.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: By Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I...have no excuse for this. At All. All I wanted was an AU where Korra takes down Ozai...and I was thinking 'what if Katara gave birth to the avatar' and...they sort of collided.

Prologue: By Blood

_“A name is a lie that keeps you from thinking you might be more than a single being.”_  
 _~”Welcome To Nightvale”_

 

It begins with a death, and it ends with a birth.  
0.  
She decides later it's the stupidest thing she's ever done, but she does it anyway.  
2.  
The moon is gone, but the blood hasn't come.  
4.  
She's figured it out, and she's distraught, how could she be so foolish? Did she really think that that would work, of all methods? Yugoda supports her, at least.  
8.  
It's strong enough for Toph to figure it out; she's the only one she tells.  
9.  
She tells him, whispering it in his ear, and he dies with a smile on his face.  
11.  
She's come to a decision; she tells no one. It goes against the traditions of her tribe (Or the ones she grew up with, at least), but she can justify it.  
When she sees the firebender she decides that maybe she made the wrong choice; she flees.  
12.  
Her brother supports her; her father is disappointed – for that she cannot blame him.  
She's just glad to know she was right about the firebender.  
15.  
He's awoken, and he can see. They're hiding now, just until the Day of Black Sun. They all steal clothing from the clothesline, but he's the only one who knows a thing about Fire Nation clothing, so it really ends up being him pointing out which pieces to steal for whom and the avatar grabbing them.  
17.  
'Kya' is the wrong name for this one, she thinks. Kya. Stone. Not for this one.  
20.  
The invasion fails, for all they have the former prince on their side; the retreat is quick and efficient but still painful.  
25.  
Forgiveness is impossible.  
30.  
Coming here might keep them safe in the present, but it has opened him to the dangers of his  
past.  
33.  
The avatar is a child. A child that doesn't understand the meaning of 'no'. Bluntness seems required.  
Her heart pangs when she sees his injured face, but she forces herself to care more for her own child than the one that stands before her now.  
40.  
Where is the avatar? Gone, run off like the flighty airbender that he is. They cannot find him, but they find the Dragon. They plan.  
Plans don't always work.  
 _What should I do? I cannot leave my traditions behind._  
They're more than halfway there, over the sea, too far to turn back, when she feels it. She calls his name over the wind and grips his hand. The look on her face tells him all he needs to know. He reaches to turn back for the Earth Kingdom, but she stops him. It's her first, she reminds him. It will take hours. Keep going. We cannot stop now. We've come to far to turn back.  
 _As the avatar you cannot separate yourself from the world. You must take responsibility for it._  
They land as soon as possible, hours later, and rush to a healer.  
Something's wrong, it's not right, what's happening.....  
 _He sees the Phoenix King; they will fight, and he will win._  
She'll take it, she tells him, all he can do is pray.  
 _Ropes of fire burst forth from their hands and feet as they leap from column to column, fighting..._  
He cannot sit still; he cannot stay put. He doesn't go far, only to the main square in the city, nearly deserted, in time to see the crown being placed on her head.  
 _He's fighting harder now, desperate for the fight to end. He's losing strength, he can't make it...no, he will make it..._  
How many hours has this been going on? She's lost count, she can't remember. Is it worth it? The pain and inconvenience? Her mother would say yes.  
 _No, he cannot drop, not now, he will float, he will glide._  
Has anything gone right since the day his father disowned him? It doesn't seem so, not at all.  
 _I am a leaf in the wind._  
Their last plans haven't worked, and this one's quickly cobbled together, but there's nothing else to do....  
 _Watch how I soar._  
It doesn't take long for him to put it in place, and he finds his way back just in time.  
 _Two fingers line up with their target._  
.  
.  
“What will you name her?”  
.  
.  
.  
 _The Avatar falls._  
.  
.  
.  
.  
“Korra.”


	2. Chapter 1: Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A late Christmas present for ya'll.
> 
> I looked into the eytmology of the name Korra, and it actually seems to come from the Greek and mean 'maiden'. So i uh...might've made something up here.

"A name is a lie that keeps you from thinking you might be more than a single being."

-Welcome to Nightvale

She wonders about her name. She knows it wasn't the one she was born with – the one her mother, a Southern Water Tribe woman, gave her. No Water Tribe woman, conquered and clinging to her home, would name her daughter for a firebender, much less one known for defeating earth kingdom troops.

She spends as much time as she can looking for all that she can find on her history. Anything, everything – she was twelve when she found a book documenting the traditions of the Southern Water Tribe as told to the author by Southerners beginning to assimilate. It was ninety years old, and the pages creaked as she turned them, and the words were faded, written in a style of character she didn't recognize, but the drawings were clear as ever. The tattoos she'd copied onto her own arms with needles and henna instead of indigo have since been covered with the armbands Prince Zuko had given to her when he saw them, but it's a comfort to know they'e there.

She goes through the books today with a mind set on one thing, something that Howl reminded her of when she begged him to teach her to speak Water Tribe (which she doesn't blame him for refusing, because if she could speak it then they wouldn't need a translator and he'd be out of a job, but she's still bitter). Sifu Katara always called her that one thing, and so did Howl, and so does Prince Zuko, sometimes, and it confuses her, because she can't find it anywhere, and it doesn't make sense for Prince Zuko to call her that.

She's exhausted, and frustrated, and about to set something on fire when she finds it, in small, faded print in the back of a book on the etymology of names, on a page torn off and then hastily stuck back in as if it were an afterthought.

_Korra (kor - ah) – fem. name_

_Usage – Water Tribe, primarily Southern._

_From the roots_ ko _and_ roh

_Meaning varies with the dialect. Variations include “unwanted blessing”, “unexpected miracle” -_

She stops reading. She knows what she needs to know, now.

Thoughts swirling around her head, she gathers the books and scrolls and tries her best to put them back where she found them. She looks at the bit of paper in her hand and tucks it into her shirt. No one will find it there.

All this time, wondering – about her name, about that word – and it's been right in front of her.

 

Apinya takes a deep breath and sets off, walking through the palace until she finds the place she's looking for and slips out, changing into the clothing of a middle-class girl before she enters the city.

The firebender wanders for a good while, content to people-watch to take her mind off of what she just read. After awhile, she realises it isn't working, and stubbornly watches the city, monochrome compared to the variety of workers in the palace, trying harder to relax.

Korra. Unexpected, unwanted -

Unwanted-

Apinya scowls and pulls out the paper, staring at it without seeing the words as if maybe if she looks at it long enough it will give her the answers she's looking for. It doesn't, and she stuffs it back into the pocket on her shirt.

So her mother hadn't wanted her, was that it? She was an accident. Maybe her father was Fire Nation. She has some Fire Nation features – the shape of her nose is distinctly islander. Pointed and long, nothing like the shorter, rounded noses of the traders she sees at the docks and women in drawings.

So then what? Her mother hadn't wanted her. Had probably been glad to give her up to the Fire Nation, her father's people. Didn't know she was the Avatar. Sifu Katara must have known Apinya's mother, then. To know her Water Tribe name.

And then....

Zuko and Howl picked it up from her?

That seems to make the most sense.

She calls to Naga when the wolf-bear strays too far and begins bothering a young man around her age, plainly trying to get food or head pats. She dances around him, wagging her tail madly, and it's then that Apinya sees his ferret-panda winding between his legs trying to get away from Naga. Apinya growls. “Naga, _come,”_ she calls more sternly, and the wolf-bear obeys, tail between her legs, whining quietly. “Sorry about that,” she calls to the young man.

He picks up the ferret-panda, setting it on his shoulders. “It's fine,” he assures her. “Pabu's not a huge fan of animals bigger than he is, besides humans. What kind of dog is that?”

Apinya feels slightly taken aback by his friendliness. “Naga's a polar wolf-bear,” she says, rather more sharply than she meant to. “From the Northern Water Tribes.”

“Neat! Pabu's from the Western Earth Kingdom. What's it like in the north?”

Well, this conversation is going exactly where a dozen others have gone.

“I've never been,” Apinya says. It's practically routine by now, explaining that she's not _really_ Water Tribe. Even if she was, there are differences between the Southern and Northern phenotypes. Not that Fire Nationals would realise it. “I'm a firebender. Don't exactly mix well with the cold.”

“Oh.....” He seems slightly surprised. “Sorry, I didn't mean.. just with the wolf-bear and everything...”

“It's fine.” It is. Apinya gets it a lot. She's pretty much used to it by now. Though looking at him, she's surprised he doesn't get it. His green eyes and broad jaw aren't the most Fire Nation of features. Maybe he is from the Earth Kingdom, and doesn't mind it.

“I'm Bolin,” he says, holding out his hand. “What's your name?”

She looks at his hand for a moment, hesitating slightly before taking it. “Korra,” she says. “My name is Korra.”

 


End file.
